Does the origin determine validity?
This is a page from the third version of Technopagan Yearnings. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.neowayland.com/C1325529963/E20061214011431
Musing on assumptions
My tastes are fairly wide, as far as I can tell, the only thing that makes me the slightest bit unusual is that I am willing to talk about them. Well, most of them anyway.
Anyway, I ran across this entry (warning: NOT work safe!) on ErosBlog last week and I was talking about it with a friend. Now to me (and I think most magickal workers) it is obvious that there is a difference between "boy" energy and "girl" energy even without the sexual context. I'd go ahead and state the obvious, each person has their own "flavor," and that will vary according to physical condition and a host of other factors. I also know that there are ladies whose energy "feels" more like "boys" and I suspect there are men whose energy "feels" more like "girls." None of this is really important though.
My friend's comment was important.
"Nice to see that someone is catching up to us Pagans."
I don't think we can say that there are too many ideas that are "exclusively" Pagan. Sensing different energies just takes a bit of discipline, I've known some nonPagans who could do it, although they were Christian and would deny that they used magick to heal.
I guess maybe it is something that has been bothering me for a while. I wrote about it here and here before. There is this undertone on the Pagan web that to be worthy, an idea has to be Pagan. There is another undertone, that all the REALLY Good Ideas came from Pagans originally and were just absorbed by (insert your choice of hated Monotheistic Faith here).
I am an eclectic, I will admit it freely. I prefer my own variety of Celtic Reconstructionism, but if I have to get something to work and work quickly, I will beg, borrow, and steal from anything I can get my hands on. At the same time, my interests are pretty wide.
Like it or not, Disney has shaped our perceptions of Fairy Godmothers and Evil Stepmothers. We'd be foolish to overlook all that energy. Although one of the things that impressed me about Aladdin is that the Princess could hold her own with the hero, and had a WAY better familiar besides.
Much of Wiccan ritual was adopted from Masonic sources, that doesn't exactly make it unworthy.
And just as the Catholic and other "High Church" sects kept the pageantry of older faiths alive (although shorn of the original meaning), some modern Neopagan trads have readopted the elaborate ritual forms to their needs and goals?
So why does something have to be "Pagan" to be a good idea?
How far removed is that from the notion that something has to be "Pagan" to be "Pure?"
That strikes me as an important question. Maybe not the question so much as the fact that it can be asked with a straight face.
Posted: Wed - December 13, 2006 at 09:14 PM
